The invention relates to a collating machine with several successively arranged feeders for the conveyance of sheets of paper on a conveyor line and a control device at every feed station to monitor the book block formation, from which machine cycle-dependent error signals are released in the case of a missed or duplicate feed.
Conveyor lines have been previously known in the preparation of book blocks, which, in the event of an error in the feeding process, for instance, the occurence of a missed or duplicate sheet, sort out the defective book blocks by means of a sheet control- and switch device, from the sheet advance flow at the appropriate time at a station located at the end of a feed line, according to WP 42 187. The book blocks, which have been sorted out, have to be taken apart manually by an operator, i.e., the sheets of paper have to be distributed onto the individual feed stations. In a different binding system for signatures with a conveyor, in accordance with DE-AS No 20 30 942, this substantial manual effort is reduced in that, following the occurrence of a disturbance at a deposition station, all successive feeders deposit no further signatures onto the already defective book block. If the defective book block is generated at one of the first feed stations, the effort required to manually separate the book blocks and sort the individual sheets or sheet layers into the magazines at the feed stations is minimal. However, in the case of almost completed book blocks, this effort is no longer justifiable.
It is the object of the invention to alter the operational flow of a conveyor line in such a way that, in the case of defective book blocks, the manual separation of the book blocks and the sorting of the individual sheets or sheet layers into the magazines at the feed stations can be eliminated.